[voydangel]

After witnessing a few other SR4A games, and seeing some comments on these and other forums, I am noticing what I perceive to be a trend of people not really using Edge very much in their games, and since this realization have concluded that I would like to see Edge have a wee bit more influence in my games as well, so I am curious:

1. How prominently does edge feature in your games? Do the PCs generally have low edge or high edge? How often to they use it? How often do you replenish their edge pool? In what ways do you encourage or discourage its use? Are you happy with the way it is currently working and the amount of influence it has in your games?

2. If anyone is familiar with the WEG d6 Star Wars system, then you know what I'm about to say, if not: In WEG Star Wars d6, one single die out of any dice pool had to be a different color than the rest of your dice in said pool. This odd colored die was the wild die. If that die rolled a 6, you could count that 6 to your total and roll again, and if you got another 6, you could do it again, etc. Sound familiar? Yup - exploding d6's AKA "the rule of 6", generally reserved for Edge dice. So my inquiry is this: What if you were to house rule that in any given dice pool you got a number of "wild dice" equal to your Edge rating (or current edge pool, your choice)? So, if a person with 4 Edge had a dice pool of 12 dice for some test, then he would roll 4 "edge dice" and the remaining 8 dice of the pool would act as normal (he still only gets a total of 12 dice). Those special dice in the pool would follow the rule of 6 (and only those dice), and all other edge rules would stay the same. The partial pool of dice using the "Rule of 6" would represent his luck, or professional rating, or what have you. Of course if the same character only had a dice pool of 3, then he still only rolls 3 dice total - but would those dice be "Edge dice" or regular dice? I know this is rather far out there, and I'm not expecting a flood of positive feedback and rave reviews, but I'm curious what you guys think.

[Chaemera]

After witnessing a few other SR4A games, and seeing some comments on these and other forums, I am noticing what I perceive to be a trend of people not really using Edge very much in their games, and since this realization have concluded that I would like to see Edge have a wee bit more influence in my games as well, so I am curious:

1. How prominently does edge feature in your games? Do the PCs generally have low edge or high edge? How often to they use it? How often do you replenish their edge pool? In what ways do you encourage or discourage its use? Are you happy with the way it is currently working and the amount of influence it has in your games?

My players keep forgetting they have it. . . but when they die, they'll be glad they invested. Frankly, I think it's important, just over-looked. I'd use it left and right on their side of the table.

Honestly, it seems more likely that people are too afraid of how hard it may be perceived to recover spent Edge. I try to strongly encourage it's use, but even so, I think it's been used only twice in the four sessions we played.

It's the classic resource hoarding problem.

[FastJack]

High-edge characters tend to throw it around a bit more, while the low-edge characters are a bit stingy with it. The real knocker is that, no matter what, most PCs should have that last point of edge saved to burn "just in case".

I'm not sure on the Wild Dice idea. If you spend a point of Edge, all your dice explode. Ergo, if you put the wild dice in there, chances are players won't be spending any Edge at all because they probably won't need it.

[Chaemera]

High-edge characters tend to throw it around a bit more, while the low-edge characters are a bit stingy with it. The real knocker is that, no matter what, most PCs should have that last point of edge saved to burn "just in case".

A character can choose to burn a point of Edge - permanently reducing his Edge attribute by 1 - for one of the following effects. . .

It's arguably an interpretation preference, but the way I read the above, they don't need a point of Current Edge to Burn a point of their Edge attribute. Just my 2¥.

I'm not sure on the Wild Dice idea. If you spend a point of Edge, all your dice explode. Ergo, if you put the wild dice in there, chances are players won't be spending any Edge at all because they probably won't need it.

Well, when you spend the Edge, if you spend it before you roll, you add the extra dice (in voyd's example, 4, for a total of 16) and ALL 16 dice can explode. Whereas, what voyd is suggesting is that even without spending Edge, a specific sub-set of your normal dice pool would always have a chance to explode, making your Edge stat (aka, Luck) more relevant roll to roll. So there's still an advantage (+4 dice, all 16 explodable) to spending the Edge. Even after the fact, you could add 4 more explodable dice to the roll if you don't like your luck.

While I don't think it's necessarily as big an impact as you might think and it does sound like a neat idea, I still probably wouldn't use it myself as I like the limited nature of the current Edge system. Also, I encourage my players to use multiple colors of dice to be able to efficiently roll several dice pools at once, so it'd make that aspect harder at my table. 

[FastJack]

It's arguably an interpretation preference, but the way I read the above, they don't need a point of Current Edge to Burn a point of their Edge attribute. Just my 2¥.

That's an interesting interpretation. I hadn't thought of it, but I'm definitely going to put it in use in my games. Since burning Edge has such major effects, I can see using it like that.

Well, when you spend the Edge, if you spend it before you roll, you add the extra dice (in voyd's example, 4, for a total of 16) and ALL 16 dice can explode. Whereas, what voyd is suggesting is that even without spending Edge, a specific sub-set of your normal dice pool would always have a chance to explode, making your Edge stat (aka, Luck) more relevant roll to roll. So there's still an advantage (+4 dice, all 16 explodable) to spending the Edge. Even after the fact, you could add 4 more explodable dice to the roll if you don't like your luck.

While I don't think it's necessarily as big an impact as you might think and it does sound like a neat idea, I still probably wouldn't use it myself as I like the limited nature of the current Edge system. Also, I encourage my players to use multiple colors of dice to be able to efficiently roll several dice pools at once, so it'd make that aspect harder at my table. 

I'm just not comfortable with having the exploding die in there without the spent Edge. Totally a personal preference.

[Nomad Zophiel]

In big dice pools, its often worth it to save Edge and reroll failed dice as opposed to adding Edge dice and taking exploding 6's.

[Chaemera]

In big dice pools, its often worth it to save Edge and reroll failed dice as opposed to adding Edge dice and taking exploding 6's.

You know, you still spend the edge. . . SR4A, pg. 74.
But, yes, we had a player who had 8 DP, 4 1's, 3 hits,  (that's 5 not-hits) so spent the edge to re-roll, thus negating the glitch & getting an extra hit or two.

[raggedhalo]

I give my players little beads as a reminder that they have Edge.  It helps encourage them to use it.  I refresh at the end of each adventure, rather than each session.

[Archivist]

I refresh at the end of each adventure, rather than each session.

My players are using it every session.  Particularly to reroll misses on big buckets of dice for summoning, attacks and the like.  They do tend to keep one in reserve in case of death   I may shift to refreshing at the end of each adventure - or key stage of a multi-part mission. 

[Chaemera]

I'm a fan of making people earn their edge refreshes. I'll give you a point of edge refresh for each major adventure goal accomplished (when accomplished), but auto-refresh the whole pool whenever we start a new session or complete an adventure? C'mon, why aren't you roleplaying, engaging in self-sacrifice, accomplishing your goals, rolling awesome and rolling failures? There's plenty of ways to recoup edge if the players are engaged that auto-refreshes are for lazy players or very dangerous GMs.

[Kot]

I second that. I won't allow Edge refreshes other than earned, both by success, and exceptional roleplaying and humour.

[Coldbringer]

Only one of my players really remembers to use edge, but all my players use it as their dump stat. As far as refresh, usually between sessions.

[Liber Hazen]

I let my NPC's use edge. Once my players see the enemy using edge then they see the importance of it [evil grin].

[The Cat]

While I may be totally off in the broader sense, my experience seems to indicate a considerable number of players don't use Edge because they're afraid they'll really need it later and won't have it.  I know I and a number of the people I play with suffer from this mindset as it pertains to Edge, especially older players who are still accustomed to the Karma Pool (burn it once, it's gone forever in most cases).  The practical upshot of that mindset is a lot of Edge but very little usage of it "just in case."

I know once I realized it and started using mine fairly regularly to get enough hits to do some pretty spectacular things, many of the other players followed suit especially when the GM read out the rules for using Edge again, so maybe that's the key, having someone who does use it to do spectacular things on a regular basis and GM reenforcement of what it is.

[Chaemera]

While I may be totally off in the broader sense, my experience seems to indicate a considerable number of players don't use Edge because they're afraid they'll really need it later and won't have it.  I know I and a number of the people I play with suffer from this mindset as it pertains to Edge, especially older players who are still accustomed to the Karma Pool (burn it once, it's gone forever in most cases).  The practical upshot of that mindset is a lot of Edge but very little usage of it "just in case."

I know once I realized it and started using mine fairly regularly to get enough hits to do some pretty spectacular things, many of the other players followed suit especially when the GM read out the rules for using Edge again, so maybe that's the key, having someone who does use it to do spectacular things on a regular basis and GM reenforcement of what it is.

That is the key problem in my games, most gamers (and mine are no different) are hoarders by nature, anything they actually can consume, and have to earn back, they never use. Sadly, seeing other people use it to good effect has not helped with my table in particular, as yet. Then again, we're all still getting comfortable with the rules.

Would I see more use of edge at my table if it refreshed every session? Probably. Would it degrade the value, specialness and "holy-shit" factor Edge is supposed to bring with it? Definitely. Thus, I don't mind seeing it come up only once or twice in a session, most of the time, their DP are big enough as is. When it does come up, everyone stops, goes "oh hell" and it sinks in, this situation is serious.